Edward Bernays

If we want to make better stuff, we can’t only measure the material and energy impacts of current stuff. We need to understand consumer demand for stuff and how that demand has been created. If we understand, then we might be able to intervene.

Start your history lesson with the video above. It’s about Edward Bernays, the father of advertising. Nephew of Sigmund Freud, he used psychological theory to sell us all kinds of things.

From the introduction:

“Bernays was the first person to take Freud’s ideas about human beings and use them to manipulate the masses. He showed American corporations, for the first time, that they could make Americans want things they didn’t need by linking mass produced goods to their unconscious desires.”